The CMO Guide: Influencer Marketing – A Blueprint for Maximizing Impact

With rising advertising costs and falling returns, businesses have been looking for more innovative ways to attract customers. Influencer marketing is one such way that companies like Airbnb have struck gold. The company’s celebrity influencer program started in 2015 when Mariah Carey, Airbnb’s first celebrity customer, booked a luxurious Airbnb mansion in Malibu. What began inadvertently as a one-off social media post is now the company’s standard influencer program. Early success with campaigns such as Airbnb’s ensured that influencer marketing remains a constant fixture in the modern marketer’s arsenal of tools.

It is not just B2C marketers who are jumping aboard the influencer marketing bandwagon. B2B marketers are doing the same. In fact, influencer marketing is slated to be one of the top four tactics that B2B marketers will use in 2019. The adoption of influencer marketing in B2B is expected to grow to 48% by the end of 2019, up from 31% in 2018. Yet, marketers struggle to identify the right influencers to work with, engage them in a manner that leads to success and measure ROI.